Saturday, September 19, 2009

Subtle Art of Dharma or the Art of Subtle Dharma ?

Mr.Gurcharan Das' lecture on The Dharma of Capitalism held in Mylapore on 18th Sept. was expectedly interesting. He continues to be an incorrigible capitalist. He has been researching the Mahabharata for more than five years now. He has recently authored a book titled "The difficulty of being good : on the subtle art of dharma".The earlier best-seller written by him,"India Unbound", was an extremely optimistic account of India's future. The author claims that he did not factor in the absence of governance while releasing "India Unbound".(It is surprising because lack of governance is a defining feature of India.) Therefore his optimism has waned. Yet he remains addicted (sic) to Mahabharata. He emphasises that the epic is not a set of rules, but a treatise on moral dilemmas.When he refers to the subtle art of dharma, the emphasis is on resolution of conflicting factors that create these dilemmas. Unfortunately, the problems faced by Indians are of a different nature. Dharma has been corrupted in ever so many unimaginable ways that we should talk about a distinct dharma or a subtle dharma.Therefore one may say it is the art of subtle dharma rather the subtle art of dharma.